We’re excited to host two more game nights for Fall 2025. The November game night will be tomorrow, Tuesday November 18 at 6 PM in CFA 235, and will feature the thesis game “starcrossed” by lab member Dana Hunt-Locklear, followed by a fun murder mystery game inspired by Clue run by Eliana Freeman. Cream Cheese Pumpkin cookies and drinks provided!

Our final game night of 2025 will be Tuesday, December 9 from 6-8 PM in CFA 235, and will feature course game projects from Advanced Game Design, Game Development, Virtual Worlds, the UB Game Dev Club, and more! Anyone who has a game or virtual reality project they’d like to playtest before final submission is welcome to share their game, just get in touch with a lab member and we’ll get you added to the list.

Huge thanks to everyone who has worked with us on projects in 2025, and we’re looking forward to sharing more information on an exciting grant project, work with the LGBTQ Video Game Archive, and youth game design camps we’ll be running in 2026. And stay tuned for flyers for Global Game Jam running again at UB on January 30-February 1, 2026!

Amatryx is back and thrilled to announce our Fall 2025 game nights! The first one is tomorrow, Tuesday September 30, featuring a playtest session of Tom Kline’s Paradise Theater game, followed by playing the RPG Off (Fangamer 2025). Snacks will be provided–brownies this time!

The lab is also recruiting new members. We have shared projects in the lab to work on (including some exciting new ones coming together) and it’s a space for people to work on their own projects as well. Time commitment is scalable to your capacity and interest!

Lastly, mark your calendars for the rest of our Fall game nights:

Thursday, October 30, 5-8 PM in CFA 235 (coinciding with Art in the Open in the CFA)

Tuesday, November 18, 6-8 PM in CFA 235: featuring a murder mystery game with lab member Eliana, and lab member Dana’s thesis game for playtesting.

Tuesday, December 9, 6-8 PM in CFA 235: featuring a playtest session of lab member Famous’ game project, as well as open playtesting for final game projects.

Please join us for the next Amatryx Game Night taking place Thursday, April 17 from 6-8 PM in CFA 235. For this game night, we’ll have lab members Eliana Freeman sharing her in-progress game project and Tom Kline sharing a conference presentation on the game Control. For our fun play portion, we’ll be playing Dragon Age: Veilguard together. Snacks and refreshments will be provided. Please share the flyer with your classes and networks, and let us know if you have any ideas for future game nights—we’re happy to feature work across media!

We will also be having a second game night on Tuesday, April 29 to coincide with the Spring Into Art event in the CFA: https://www.ubcfa.org/events-exhibitions/special-events/spring-into-art-2025.html

This second game night will be a celebration of student game development and game research projects this year, and will be open to any students who want to share. Get in touch with Cody if you want to show your game project at the event!

Please join us for the first Amatryx Game Night of 2025 on Thursday, March 13 at 6 PM in CFA 235! Amatryx Game Nights are open to all and consist of two parts: the first is someone sharing their in-progress work in games or other media for feedback, and the second is playing a popular game together for fun. This month we will have lab members Famous Clark and Dana Hunt-Locklear sharing their in-progress game projects, followed by a play session of Metaphor ReFantazio. No game experience required, snacks and refreshments will be provided. Reach out to Cody Mejeur if you have an idea for a future game night, or if you’d like to join the Amatryx lab (more info at https://ubwp.buffalo.edu/amatryx/).

And mark your calendars for our other game nights this semester: Thursday, April 17, and Tuesday, April 29 (coinciding with Spring Into Art in the CFA!).

We also wanted to share an update and celebration of Global Game Jam 2025, which we hosted with Buffalo Game Space, UB DMS and Center for the Arts, and UB Game Dev Club in January. Approximately 75 people attended the jam this year and made over 20 games! Thank you to everyone who organized, supported, and attended the event, and check back in the future for more game jam opportunities.

Please join us for Global Game Jam 2025, which we are again co-hosting with Buffalo Game Space, UB Game Dev Club, Department of Media Study, and Center for the Arts. GGJ will run at UB in the CFA atrium on January 24-26. Food will be provided for all meals as well as some snacks, equipment will be available through DMS for sound recruiting and asset creation in computer labs, and mentors from Buffalo Game Space and UB will be on hand to help with game projects. No experience is required! Even if you’re completely new to making games, you can come and join a team and learn some new skills (while likely making new connections and friends in the process!). Please see the flyer below for more details, as well as a QR code and link to the free registration.

Please share with anyone who might be interested!

And, as a bonus, learn more about Amatryx Gaming Lab & Studio at the event! Here’s a screenshot from our last lab meeting of 2024, when we recapped our projects and activities for the year and played some games together.

Please join us for the final Amatryx Game Night of 2024 on Tuesday, December 10 at 6 PM in CFA 235. This game night is entirely dedicated to playtesting student game projects for finals, so if you or your friends or students have games that could use playtesting, bring them to game night!

Donuts will be provided!

We’ll also be doing a long-needed update of the website over the break, stay posted for more details.

Please join us for another Amatryx game night on Tuesday, November 19 from 6-8 PM in CFA 235! This month we’ll be playing Trans Folks Walking, one of Amatryx’s lab game dev projects, together, followed by some retro games in an arcade cabinet! Refreshments and snacks provided.

Please share with anyone who might be interested, and thank you to Famous for the flyer!

Attached please find two Amatryx flyers: the first for our game night on Tuesday, October 29 featuring a new board game by lab member Max Wilde, followed by play time of student game projects and the recently released Silent Hill 2 remake. This game night coincides with the Art in the Open event, and will be one small part of the festivities that night in the Center for the Arts at UB. Come check out our games, enjoy some cookies, and see Art in the Open, all in a convenient one stop shop evening!

The second flyer is a recruitment flyer for the Amatryx Gaming Lab & Studio. In the past year we’ve had wonderful lab members graduate and move on to other jobs and projects, and the lab is open and accepting new undergraduate, graduate, and faculty members! Now is a great time to get involved with the lab as we begin work on a couple new projects, including pulling together our next grant project, Gaming in the Rust Belt, focused on game stories, communities, and development in the Rust Belt region.

Please share the flyers with anyone who might be interested. Thanks to Famous and Dana for the flyers!

Please see the attached flyer (and share with your classes/friends/students!) for the first Amatryx game night of the semester, happening on Tuesday, September 24 in CFA 235 from 6-8 PM. For this first game night, we’ll be featuring games by lab members Joan Nobile and Famous Clark, followed by some just-for-fun play time of Age of Mythology Retold, a spinoff of the classic Age of Empires games. We’ll also have a brief QA session about Amatryx’s work, current projects, and how to join for those interested—we are welcoming new members!

Each month Amatryx hosts a game night with the first half dedicated to constructive feedback on creative projects (including but not limited to games—we’ve featured poetry, electronic literature, short films, and more!) and the second half dedicated to playing a game together for fun. Lab members get priority for sharing their creative projects at game nights, but we also welcome folks outside of the lab or games courses to share their work too—just let us know, and we can work you into the schedule! Snacks and refreshments provided at each game night.

Check out our About page for more info about Amatryx!

Future game nights (details and flyers to follow!):

October 29, 6-8 PM in CFA 286

November 19, 6-8 PM in CFA 235

December 3, 6-8 PM in CFA 235

The Amatryx Lab is really excited to share an episode of Gayming Podcast, the podcast for Gayming Magazine, that Cody got to be a part of! This episode celebrates 35 years since CM Ralph published Caper in the Castro, a foundational queer game released as “charityware” during the AIDS crisis. Huge thanks to Robin and Miabyte for hosting Cody, and to Adrienne Shaw who recommended them for it!

This summer the Amatryx Lab is working on finishing and publishing Trans Folks Walking, our game that has been in development, and on laying the groundwork for our next big project: Gaming in the Rust Belt, focused on game design, gaming cultures, and regional history in the Rust Belt region. We will be conducting reading and playing groups this summer, and let us know if you’d like to get involved in some way!